Agave, yield and color %'s?

I was thinking of adding Agave instead of sugar to a recipe.

This is Organice Blue Agave. States, "It is 25% sweeter than sugar, and has a low GI.

Brew target lists the following, but does not have agave in there so was trying to figure out numbers.

Corn Sugar, 100% Yield, 0.0 Color
Table Sugar, 100% Yield 1.0 Color
Honey, 75% Yield, 1.0 Color

Do you think I should put this Agave at

80% Yield 2.0 Color?

I'm not sure if its the Agave nectar that you're talking about, but the agave plant is used to make tequila and mezcal. Those are both distilled, what we call beer or wine made from agave is called "pulque". I looked it up in "Sacred Healing and Herbal Beers", it talks about it quite a bit, but it doesn't off any actual recipes. The nutrition label should tell you the sugar content, I'd compare that to the sugar content of honey and start with just a traditional mead recipe, substituting the agave nectar. But that might just be me. Either way, its something I've wondered about before, really anxious to hear how it comes out.

This is made from Agave Nectar it says.

Its 60 cal / Tbsp

I was thinking of adding this to a ale recipe just to bump up gravity a little and maybe a little bit of aroma/taste from the agave.

I just made a batch of beer with some 2nd runnings, and like a child with their first chemistry set I just threw a bunch of weird stuff in. I view 2nd runnings as "free" wort, so I usually experiment with them.

I added .5 lb of blue agave nectar to what ended up being 3.5 gallons post boil.

I couldn't really tell you how it effected the beer because of all the other crap I did, but it did finish at 1.002. I didn't think the agave would dry it out as much as sugar because of the low glycemic-index. It also didn't change the color much at all, though the second runnings were from a scotch ale and were a light brown. It might make a more noticeable difference in something more pale.

Sorry I misunderstood you original question. We have a couple bottles of agave at work (nectave is the brand if it makes any difference) with a proper nutrition label. It lists the ingredients as agave nectar and nothing else. It estimates 16g in each tablespoon of nectar. Honey is about 17g per tablespoon. I assume the yield you're looking for is convertible sugars, so agave nectar should be just under honey, maybe estimate it at 70%? I can't help you on the color though, hope that helps.

offthewagon said:

Sorry I misunderstood you original question. We have a couple bottles of agave at work (nectave is the brand if it makes any difference) with a proper nutrition label. It lists the ingredients as agave nectar and nothing else. It estimates 16g in each tablespoon of nectar. Honey is about 17g per tablespoon. I assume the yield you're looking for is convertible sugars, so agave nectar should be just under honey, maybe estimate it at 70%? I can't help you on the color though, hope that helps.

Click to expand...

I'll just put it at 70% Yield 2.0 Color. I'm sure that's close enough, thx.

Agave nectar is unfortunately highly processed and not much different from other sugar.

The legit stuff is called 'miel de agave,' though I'm not sure if it has much flavor either as I've never used it.

Potential 1.035 SG
Color 1.5 SRM